The essential software updates from Microsoft, always to improve productivity on Windows. While previous versions mainly contain improvements to existing tools, PowerToys 0.68.0 adds two new toys for its users.
Windows Toybox just got better! On Wednesday, March 1, the PowerToys software, developed by Microsoft and designed to improve user productivity, was updated to a version 0.68.0.
Another beta version that is not satisfied with improvements to existing tools and bug fixes. Two new tools are coming to improve copy/paste and multi-screen usage.
Copy and paste without leaving a trace
First toy added to this version: “Paste as plain text“, translated by “Paste as plain text“. The name says it all, because once activated in PowerToys, this option allows you to keep only the content of the text you copy from a site or a document. Even the selected text is bold and underlined in a 27-point serif font If you paste this snippet into an email, only the text will be displayed.
If modern web browsers already integrate this option via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V, “Paste as plain textpromises to apply it to all your software, in addition to letting users choose the key combination. Default is Ctrl+Win+V.
Mouse jump between screens
Second new tool:mouse jump“, Or “mouse jumpAdded in the Mouse Utilities section, this feature allows you to quickly move your cursor over large distances.
Once activated, you can use the Win + Shift + D keys to open a window with a thumbnail copy of all your screens. Clicking anywhere in this window will teleport your cursor there. Handy in everyday life if you use a very large screen or multiple monitors.
An indispensable toy box
The details of these two new features and all the fixes and improvements included in this update are on the page Power Toys GitHub. As we remember, this suite of productivity tools is now open source since 2019, after a first life on Windows 95 and XP.
In particular, this new version brought a tool to easily locate the mouse cursor on the screen, an omniscient search bar modeled on the macOS Spotlight model and, more recently, the ability to type specific characters (such as É and Ç that are dear to the French language) without looking for it in the character table.
PowerToys 0.68.0 is available on Windows 10 and 11, both in the desktop version and the Microsoft Store software application.
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